N.H. poll: Romney ahead, who’s No. 2?

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney appears poised to easily win New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary, but the question going into a debate-laden weekend is who will finish second.

Romney

A new NBC/Marist poll shows Romney at 42 percent of the vote, up slightly from 39 percent just a month ago. Libertarian Rep. Ron Paul is second at 22 percent, in a state where independents can cross over and vote in the GOP primary.

But former Sen. Rick Santorum, barely a blip in December, is up to 13 percent in the wake of surging to a tie with Romney in Iowa.

Ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, flayed in TV ads by a Romney “SuperPAC,” has fallen to 9 percent from 24 percent a month ago. He is tied for fourth place with former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who has bet all on New Hampshire.

Sixty-five percent of the 711 New Hampshire Republicans polled said Romney has the best chance to defeat President Obama in November. Obama has a job approval rate of only 40 percent in New Hampshire, according to NBC/Marist.

The Republicans’ six candidates will debate twice in the contest’s final weekend.

They face off Saturday night on ABC, and again Sunday morning on NBC’s venerable “Meet the Press.” Romney is expected to be the target, particularly of an angry Newt Gingrich.

Romney holds the cards: He is the former governor of a neighboring state. He owns a summer estate in New Hampshire. He ran in 2008, finishing second to Sen. John McCain. And McCain, who detested Romney four years ago, has come around to endorse his former foe.

Romney can eclipse illustrious predecessors in the run for the White House.

He finished — apparently — eight votes ahead of Santorum last Tuesday in Iowa. No Republican presidential candidate, not even Ronald Reagan, has won both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.

Still, not everybody likes the man that Gingrich derides as a “Massachusetts moderate.”

The ultra-conservative Union Leader, New Hampshire’s largest newspaper, is supporting Gingrich. The Boston Globe, biggest paper in Romney’s home state, has endorsed Jon Huntsman.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is skipping New Hampshire, except for the debates, and concentrating his energies on the Jan. 21 South Carolina primary.

Every Republican nominee since Ronald Reagan in 1980 has carried the Palmento State.